Colour by SEAT - the appliance of science

Watch how carefully SEAT create colours for their new cars. It takes a long time and none of it is left to chance. Each step is carefully monitored to get the precise shade which will have us buying that particular car in our thousands.

IT takes three years, 84 robots and 5000 litres of paint to create a new colour for any car.

The process begins with a market study to discover just what the customer wants and ends with the final shade of paint being applied to the car.

On thousand litres of paint are required for every new shade as it goes through its birth and development to the final colour choice on the palette.

Jordi Font from SEAT’s Colour and Trim department said: “In addition to following trends, a lot of intuition also goes into defining a new shade. You have to feel the pulse on the street and run with it.”

To begin with its an exercise in chemistry as mixtures are carried out in the lab.

For the SEAT Arona scientists mixed 50 different pigments and metal particles to create 100 variations of the one colour to get the most suitable shade.

“Colours get more sophisticated every day and the demand for customisation is a growing trend”, says Font.

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An example of this is the new SEAT Arona, which gives customers the opportunity of choosing from among more than 68 different colour combinations.

One the colour has been identified it has to be tested on metal plate to see how it transfers and the visual effect it creates.

Depth and subtlety is checked and the plates are exposed to sunlight and shade to make sure the colour remains true.

From there it’s on to the surgery room where 84 robots operating in booths, spray the cars in temperatures between 21 and 25 degrees celsius.

They apply two and a half kilos of paint to each car in a process that takes six hours per vehicle. A special ventilation system prevents dust and impurities from entering and settling on the freshly painted car.

In all, seven coats are applied, each as thin as a hair’s breadth but when finally baked on at 140 degrees, the finished article is as hard as rock.

A CAT scanner - normally seen in hospitals - goes over the car in 43 seconds to check for any deficiencies while a second scanner goes over the car for smoothness and impurities.